Published February 2025

This note has been prepared based on a review of the recently released BS EN 1990:2023 together with current second generation Eurocodes BS EN 1997-1 and BS EN 1997-2 published in September 2024, and the draft prEN 1997-3:2023 dated December 2023. The Part 3 draft is still work-in-progress for a number of the Clauses although the main principles are expected to remain unchanged.
With the Second-Generation Eurocodes comes some new terminology and an update to ensure more consistency in references to the various ground parameter definitions across the relevant portions of the new standard. The primary sources are BS EN 1990 and BS EN 1997-1 which outline the relevant properties to be considered in design whereas BS EN 1997-2 concentrates on rules and guidance for the selection of ground investigation methods to obtain ground properties.
A comparison between existing and Second-Generation Eurocode definitions is summarised below with the main changes being the introduction of Indicative and Best Estimate properties and better differentiation and clarity between the definitions of Characteristic and Representative values.